Saturday 18 April 2020

There are relatively few 'adequate' statistics.

Y'know what I mean - about Covid infections.

There's an interesting artricle here from Rueters about the USS Roosevelt where the virus was able to infect a controlled and isolated population who were all then examined at tested for infection.

It seems that 60% of infections were asymptomatic among a young, healthy population.

OK, now another less solid statistic.

BBC Radio 4 PM show - you can stream it here - had an interview last night around 5.40ish with with an anonymous doctor working in a coronavirus ward. The interview was voiced to make it less traceable. She estimated that 20% of positive Covid cases, as in people clearly displaying the correct symptoms, would test negative first time using the PCR test for viral RNA, only getting a positive result on a second test.

And I'd like to roll in a third factor - a paper from the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control.

Basically it looks like some people may remain infectious for quite a bit longer than the 14 days currently used to quarantine potential infections. I recall discussing this online a few weeks ago with someone who was being a bit 'I work for the NHS and am therefore irrefutable' who was absolute in his conviction that 14 days was exactly enough because that was what he'd been told.

So putting this lot together, it's little wonder that despite the best efforts of many governments, Covid has been rampaging through various societies.

20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing!

5 comments:

  1. Apologies if this comes in three times, but now it won't let me post in Safari, either!...

    20/20 hindsight is exactly it in a number of respects. I'm starting to notice that a month into the social distancing and "stay home" requests, people are starting to get restless and grumpy—speaking up more negatively on social media, whereas before they may have been more respectful of the requirements. Our PM is getting more and more flack, which was suprisingly quiet for a while (or area is *very* conservative, so our PM typically can do no right).

    Starting to see all this, I started to to think about that hindsight thing, too. Now the talk is all about what the military had told the government back in January and how they did or didn't respond. Hearing this I wonder, how would *any* of us have responded at that time? Would any of us have dared think about closing off borders entirely and bringing our economy to an almost complete stand-still? I doubt it. But looking back we think, "The government should've done something." Well, yes—we know that *now*.

    It was interesting when this first started. On my Facebook feed I could see people saying contradictory things about what our PM should do. Either quarantine himself (his wife had been diagnosed with COVID-19) or not quarantine himself (quarantine would be a betraying of his duties). He couldn't win. And in hindsight, few people can win.

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  2. OK...note to self: Brave and Safari don't like my comments. Opera does.

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  3. (Works in chrome too.)

    I wondered about your educated opinion Toni. It sounds like it is as I wondered.

    Real human men and women leaders making decisions the best and worst that they can.

    Truth is as you've said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
    ― Søren Kierkegaard

    Miss ya.

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    1. Miss you two too.

      Actually, miss M&D up there as well.

      Delete
  4. I dunno if my opinion is educated, but it's kind of you to give me the benefit of the doubt. ;-)


    Our government is getting flack in spades right now, some mistakes of their own making, some things their advisers plainly got wrong, some things like the above were just hidden and unfortunate. What I do see is all the judges using hindsight while those in authority seem to have panicked and have apparently let go of a need to be truthful.

    I've come to the conclusion people need someone to blame, and love to moan & whine about everything that they can foist onto someone else.

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Play nice - I will delete anything I don't want associated with this blog and I will delete anonymous comments.